


His Light, his Life, his Impossible Girl

by MediocreHuman



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Hatred, Self-Reflection, Survivor Guilt, The Doctor (Doctor Who) Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 15:32:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15294552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MediocreHuman/pseuds/MediocreHuman
Summary: Before embarking on an adventure with his new Companion, his Impossible Girl, Clara Oswald, the Doctor takes a moment to reflect on the fates of all the others who had traveled with him since he did the unthinkable and ended the Last Time War





	His Light, his Life, his Impossible Girl

**Author's Note:**

> I admit it's been a while since I watched Doctor Who and I'm just re-joining the fandom after a very long break. I know the Doctor isn't his usual manic 5-year-old self but he's sad, and he misses his old friends so please excuse the lack of excitment and possible OOC-ness

The universe, with all it’s beauty and sorrow and promises, was cruel. It whispered in his ears, calling for him, giving rise to love and hope and the temporary ability to shed the weight of the world for just a few, precious, beautiful moments. It never lasted. 

First was Rose, sweet, innocent Rose. His Bad Wolf. No, she wasn’t his. Not anymore. She was first nine’s, and then ten’s, and then the doctor’s duplicate.  _ He shook his head. Wrong again. He’s usually never wrong. He must be going senile. A pity. Or maybe not. His time must come eventually after all. _ But Rose wasn't his, she never was. She was her own person, a beautiful, wonderful person who pulled him from the depths of his despair and healed his hearts so that he could begin anew, to love again. Her warmth and love grew seeds of forgiveness and hope in his stone cold, regret-filled hearts. 

And then he left her behind. In Bad Wolf Bay, in another dimension, where he could never see her again. “It was better this way” he tried to convince her. He doubted it worked, though it didn’t stop him from trying. She had his double and maybe, just maybe she could do for him what she has done already, heal the wounds the battlefield left behind and love unconditionally despite the scars that littered both of their souls, visible or not. He...Ten never got over leaving her behind. Not really. 

Martha, his brave not quite a doctor.  _ He briefly wondered if she ever followed that dream. No, he knew she didn’t. That dream ended when she met him. _ She was the Woman who walked the Earth, during that one long year that never was. She was a soldier of his own creation, a storm he let loose, the world’s only hope to fight the Master’s control. He stole her from her family, stole her hopes and dreams and most importantly, most regrettably, her heart. So lost in his despair over losing his Rose, he completely ignored the love and devotions that shone in Martha’s eyes when she looked at him. Ignored the heartbreak in them when he tossed her aside, because Rose, Rose, Rose was all he could think about. He missed her, Martha that is, looking back. He missed her dreadfully but he understood why she left. She had a life to get back to. She had a family to care for and scars in her heart that needed mending. Scars he inadvertently helped place. She had experienced death, and terror, and persecution, and yet she walked. Had continued walking, against terrifying odds and hopeless oppression, she had walked, and spread his story, the story of the man who she loved with all her heart, who couldn’t love her back. She had believed in him long enough. The storm that lay in her eyes was finally ready to dissipate. It was time for her to rest. 

She would never get that year back, never get back the innocence she had once possessed, but at least she would be okay. She had Rose’s old boyfriend, Mickey, “the boy who grew up” at her side. Last he checked they were both soldiers for UNIT.  _ Guilt ripped through him like the laser the Master had used to force him into reluctant compliance. _ Sometimes he almost wished for him back, The Master. At least, then he wasn’t alone in this vast universe, at least then he had a friend who could understand.  _ He sighed. _ No, he couldn’t wish for that. He could never do that to Martha's memory. She had fed the storm in her soul, that fierce determination, and passion and turned it into something much darker, all for him. She had walked the earth for him. He at least had the decency to walk away from her, two soldiers left behind where previously there had been none. He hoped Martha and Mickey could find happiness together. They deserved it.

Donna. Donna, what words could he use to describe his brilliant Donna? She was the Most Important Woman in the Universe, but she was more than just that. She was feisty and bossy and took no nonsense from anybody. She had been his best friend, really his only friend at the time. He loved her, not in a romantic way, and she returned those feelings. Best of friends, she eased the hole in his heart and he showed her exactly how brilliant she could be, because Donna Noble was just that, brilliant, even if she could never believe it. He wished she believed it, she deserved the world in his eyes. She had grown so much as a person! She had started as a breeze, a simple breeze just making her way through life, not believing she was anything important. What could she do, a simple breeze? Wrong, she was so wrong, he had taken her by the hand and showed her exactly what she could do because a breeze has so much potential if he could just show her! It was beautiful, absolutely beautiful! 

And then he took it all away, along with Donna’s memories. The wild winds are gone, a breeze once again. Gone, she had saved the universe and what did it give her in return? Nothing. Just nothing. All that growth, all that beauty, gone, because if she remembered any part of it, she would be truly gone, dead, and the Doctor couldn’t bear it. He hoped her grandfather, “Wilf” was alright. He, the Doctor had died for him after all, died for the man who knocked. He trusted Wilf to keep on caring and keep on protecting his brilliant best friend because the World wasn’t fair. The world wasn’t fair, but just this once, he had hoped it would make an exception.

Jack was wrong. So, so, so wrong. So wrong it physically pained him and his TARDIS. It wasn’t fair. Like so many things in life, it wasn’t fair. Jack had loved him, respected him, so what did he do? He threw him out of the TARDIS. The Doctor, the one being who could possibly understand the pain and agony Jack was going through straight up abandoned him. The doctor left his friend, that endless river of potential. That’s what Jack was, full of potential and kindness that one might not expect from someone who had suffered like he had. He could laugh and joke and be so kind, yet all it took was one look to see the sadness, the ache for death that no mortal could ever understand. Jack was the ocean, beautiful and cruel, filled with dark depths and harsh currents. Sometimes though, when the universe allowed, he got his chance to be merciful, even when others couldn’t see it. 

_ He let out a chuckle. He supposed he could visit him one of these days but he doubted it would be appreciated. He knew what transpired, those dark two days, with the Children of Earth. He knew what Jack had sacrificed, what he had lost. He doubted he could face him again. _ So he ran instead. When they met up again, with him still occupying his previous body, Jack had willingly walked away. He had Cardiff and the world to protect after all. He might as well make use of the curse that was placed upon him by Rose and the Doctor. Sometimes he wondered why, how Jack ever managed to forgive him for that. He had seen Jack’s future, he had seen what he would become. The Face of Boe he would be called. 

His only respite from the guilt was that he knew, far into the future, too far if you asked him, Jack would die.  _ Wishing death upon a friend. I’ve changed.  _ But it was true. Jack had lived a long life, you only had to look into the dark depths in his eyes to see it. He deserved to rest. Now he wasn’t big on earth religions but still, he couldn’t help but hope that somewhere, some merciful being would reunite Jack with those he loved, those he sacrificed, all in the name of saving a planet that sometimes felt like it was forsaking him. Jack was a good man, a great man, a man that he could not, would not ever forget. He owed him that much

And then...the girl who waited. He had wronged her so badly when they first met. He had taken a child and gave them so much hope, only to leave her behind to sit in an old garden waiting. Amy, she was so fierce, like Donna, she stood up for herself, she marched into danger, into the Doctor's TARDIS without hesitation even after all that was taken from her. She always marched on, eyes flashing and bright red hair trailing behind her, like the flickering flames she had come to represent. He thought they would last forever, but in the end, she may have loved him and him, her but he was never where her heart truly lied. 

Rory, the last centurion. The Doctor admitted, at first, he didn’t think much of him. He had seemed like every other little boring human but Amy insisted on him coming, so there he was. It wasn’t until much, much later that he started to regret his first impression because while Amy had been fire, Rory had been the earth. He had stood by her side through thick and thin, he had waited 2,000 years for her because that’s what love is. He would have sacrificed it all for her, and when it was time, she did the same. 

Sometimes, amongst all the passion and, well, fire, people could forget that flames were not invented solely to harm. They had the potential to burn away all that lay in their path but flames also had the potential to heal, and comfort. Amy’s youthful desire for adventure may have waned but her fire never did. Instead, it was redirected, towards domesticity and a simple life. She would always be his Spitfire, her fire had just been redirected. So even as he screamed and wept and wailed for his best friends to  _ just come back _ to him he knew that they never would. The Girl who waited had waited long enough. It was time for her to settle down with the Last Centurion, and live the long peaceful life they had so craved.

River had been perhaps the most peculiar of his companions. Probably because she wasn’t just a simple companion. She was his wife. It used to feel strange, saying that. He had a wife. River. The daughter of his best friends, Amy and Rory.  _ He tried not to dwell on that, the fact that he had failed and because of that, his best friends never got a chance to raise a child, and River never got to experience the love and devotion she so deserved, would never get a chance to Be Melody Pond.  _ Her mother may have been fire and her father, the earth but River, she was different. She was ice. She may have acted carefree but he could see the weight in her soul, could remember the pain in her eyes when she introduced herself to a younger him and he had no idea who she was. 

His perfect wife, so strong and wild was stolen from her parents, just to create the perfect weapon to kill him. She hadn’t wanted to. He had tried to save her before yet they still ended up at that lake. The lake where they stood, River and the Doctor, and both watched with dread in their hearts as River pulled the trigger. Tick Tock goes the clock, even for the doctor. They both knew it, so why did it hurt so much, even more than the gunshot itself, seeing her tear-streaked face. 

He already knew how her story would end. Time would move on and she would keep going, keep burying those feelings, burying everything she loved and hoped for deep, deep under layers and layer of ice because that’s what she was. She may have pretended once to be made of ice, cold and merciless, but that wasn’t the truth. She wasn’t ice because of what her masters had molded her to be. She was ice because that’s what entrapped her heart, with all that she had given up layered deep down, frozen forever more. She always had been rather selfless. She would continue to meet the doctor at younger and younger ages, till one day she would meet him at such a young age, that he would no longer recognize her. She had once said she would die when that fated day happened when she looked into her lover's eyes and saw no recognition. Turns out, she hadn't been wrong.

_ So here he was, old and alone, sitting high up in the clouds, guilt and regret lay heavy in his hearts. He knew what he was. Death. Darkness, he dragged everyone he knew and loved into the black night and every. Single. One. had suffered because of it. He didn't deserve them… _

“Doctor?” And there she was. His Impossible girl, his souffle girl, alive again. Part of him called him selfish, cruel even for daring to bring another into his TARDIS, for promising adventure to another innocent soul, but Clara was different. She was light, and life, in a way that no other had been. She had pulled him from the depth of his own sorrows and brought a spark of life back into him. He could only hope that that light could protect her, would protect her from the darkness in his soul, because he didn’t think he could take another loss. “Doctor?” her concerned face was suddenly far closer then he remembered. “Are you alright” He could do it. For her. Even as his mind screamed at him and hurled dark memories and painful truths, he would keep fighting and keep smiling and maybe if he did that he could outrun the universe, with all it’s beauty and cruelty and pain because even if he did deserve it, Clara, his light, his life, his impossible souffle girl, did not. 

And just like that, even as he rushed to assure her that he was fine, as he danced around the TARDIS like a manic child, he made a promise. He promised that no matter what happened, he would never let that light flicker out, because he, more than anyone, knew how heavy the emptiness could be.


End file.
